“For Asians, the Valentine’s Day equivalent is on July 7, or the 7th day of the 7th month cause we’re on the lunar calendar. The story behind that is, in the past, there was a heavenly maiden who came down to earth. A farmer saw her, and thought she was so beautiful that he kept her clothes. She couldn’t go back to heaven without her clothes, so she had to follow him, and eventually they got married and fell in love. One day though, the farmer went to work and while he was at work, she found her clothes and went back to Heaven. She was still in love with the human but they were 2 totally different beings, so they couldn’t stay together. A god saw this and took pity on them, and made a day where the 2 lovers can travel the Milky Way and be together. The Milky Way is symbolically a river you can cross.”

This myth is similar to Greek myths where the god falls in love with a human. This story more states the differences between gods and humans, and if put on more local levels, talks about how people, whether different in essence or far in distance could be together for a day; that goes into the implicit message of Valentine’s Day. It also goes back to ancient Chinese reverence and symbolism for the cosmos, where the Milky Way, to this day, symbolizes a river that people can cross into another world.